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Saturday, June 10, 2006

Back in the mid-1960s, The Standells wrote a hymn to their hometown of Boston, Dirty Water. The song was adopted by the local baseball team, the Red Sox, and became part of the ball game mythology. And that made it an attractive song to Budweiser, the company which makes a product described as beer.

They used it in a commercial, and so the Standells' record company got a huge cheque to cover the royalty payments.

Problem is, The Standells had never been asked if they wanted their music used on a beer commercial - and it turns out they didn't:

"An advertiser decided to turn an artist into a pitchman without their consent," the Standells' attorney, Steven Ames Brown, said Friday. "That's morally wrong."

Anheuser-Busch, who make the lager-flavoured drink, told the Associated Press they hadn't received a copy of the complaint, and would wait until they did before saying anything further.